Take it up with Goddess

After my post on female born only spaces (below) I began thinking about the subject of cisgender privilege. Now I very much doubt that Monty Python in 1979 anticipated fevered debate on this very thing almost 30 years in the future. But amazingly they still managed to make almost the definitive comment on the subject. Stan wants to have a baby, but he hasn’t got a womb. Oh no! He’s BEING OPPRESSED! But by whom?

Now even the People’s front of Judea are forced to accept that Stan not being able to have a baby is not, specifically, the fault of the Romans. But they still decide, symbolically to fight the oppressors for his right to have babies (with the exception of Reg).

So what does all this have to do with radical feminism? Erm well we are always told that those assigned female at birth have ‘cisgender privilege’ particularly if - horrors - we want to have a born female only space. But how exactly is this exercising ‘privilege’? And who grants that ‘privilege’?  To help me decide if I personally have cisgender privilege I’ve used the ‘cisgender privilege checklist’ . (nb other cisgender privilege checklists are available - in fact there seem to be an almost infinite number but this one was picked at random simply because it came top  in a google search, and -  if I’m totally honest -  it was quite easy to take the piss out of)

On all mental, emotional, and social levels, I am the gender everyone believes me to be. I am expected to take my place in society as a member of my own gender. I have never been forced to act in a manner contrary to the gender I know myself to be. I have never had to lie about what gender I feel I am inside. I do not have to worry about keeping my gender identity a secret from the world.

 So what gender do I feel I am inside again? I believe gender is a social construct. So that would be - none. I’ll try putting that next time I fill in a job application should I? Gender -none, or ‘just a social construct’.

As a child, I was allowed and even expected to play with children of my own gender. Even now, I am allowed and even expected to socialize with people of my own gender

Because - oh let me see - children are never allowed to play with girls if they’re boys, or adults are never allowed to socialize with men if they’re women. What planet are you living on again?

I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my gender identity, there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences. My gender identity is just assumed based on my physical appearance.

Well as an ‘out’ lesbian I am currently suffering homophobic discrimination at work, so isn’t that an economic and social  consequence of being a woman who doesn’t conform to her expected gender role? Does this mean I’m no longer cisgendered? And when dressed a certain way, I sometimes get mistaken for a male. Does this mean I’m no longer cisgendered?

When I have talked about my internal sense of gender, no one has tried to prove me wrong or change me. I don’t have to defend my gender identity. No one associates me with the crazy people who populate talk shows just because of my gender identity.

Bit ablist that one isn’t it? ‘Crazy people’? Not to mention Talk Show ist? Well I have been told by a drunken builder that I am ‘confused and I want cock’. Does that count as having my gender identity questioned? Oh and I’ve been told I ‘look like a boy’ (no mean feat for a 40 something woman). Does that count as having my gender identity questioned? Am I still cisgendered?

If I date, I can play the role of my own gender without problems, or if I have problems, I know that other people will understand. I can easily find a partner who accepts my gender identity. If I marry, I am still allowed to have friends of my own gender, and if I am single and a friend of my gender marries, I can still be friends with her/him.

Well erm - I’m a lesbian so I can’t date straight women even I wanted to or get  married (a civil partnership isn’t the same). And I wouldn’t want to participate in a patriarchal ritual even if I could. Especially if I was going to get married to a pathologically jealous person who didn’t allow me to have an opposite (or same in my case) sex friends in case I ran off with them. Who compiled this list FFS? Lots of people  I know who are married have opposite sex friends, and lots of gay people in steady relationships have same sex friends. It’s the modern way you know. Outside of fundamentalist communities at least.  Am I still cisgendered?

All my life, I have heard language that validates my sex/gender combination (for example, “female,” “woman,” “girl,” etc. all mean “biologically female,” not “having a female gender identity”).

When I’m thinking about how I get paid less than any of my (less well qualified) brothers, how they are much less likely to be raped etc etc etc I always comfort myself with this thought - I get to be called ’she’ and they don’t.

I have worked in a job where transgendered people, masculine women, and feminine men were hired last or fired first and have a low status among workers.

Well actually I work in a job where there are  a lot of gay men in important positions. Oh and the chief executive of my organisation (male) likes to dress up as Nell Gwynne in public and frequently does so. That doesn’t stop me being the victim of anti lesbian discrimination though, but hey - I’m a woman. A ‘masculine’ woman - horrors! Still cisgendered?

When I talk about my gender identity, I will not be accused of pushing it onto others.

Gosh this happens every day - I go into work and after the first cheery ‘good mornings’ (or snarl at the homophobe in my case), people start talking about their gender identity “My gender identity is female” is a typical opening gambit. Which is fine except in the case of the bloke who likes to dress up as one of the Andrews sisters - when we all chorus ’stop pushing your gender identity onto us!”.

Really - do you live on planet heteronormativity?

I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my gender identity, and my sexual orientation is not questioned. If I express feelings that are gender-appropriate for me, no one gives it a second thought.

“You’re a lesbian, you’re confused, you want cock”. Next!

I lived my childhood in a gender that felt appropriate for me at the time, and still does. I lived my childhood in the gender that I want to have lived it in.

I lived my childhood as a ‘tomboy’ climbing trees and the like. I did not play with dolls, nor did I wear dresses. So yes I did. But if I had had less enlightened parents, I may well have been  forced to behave more like a traditional little ‘girl’.  But as point of information, very few small children have a fixed gender identity. This tends to happen from about five years old onwards, largely because of social conditioning.

I did not spend years trying to repress my internal sense of gender, nor have I ever questioned my sanity because of it.

I have frequently questioned my sanity with regard to a world that tells me because I have a certain genital arrangement, I deserve to be paid less, am far more likely to be raped by someone who will go unpunished, and am generally expected to act and look like a subservient porno Barbie doll. Still cisgendered?

I can reproduce in the same way as others of my gender and take the same parental role.

Well, having never tried to get pregnant, and being in the position where my faulty ovaries have conked out early, I’ll never know. But there would be the little matter of lesbians, or unmarried women not being allowed the same reproductive rights as partnered heterosexual women. And if you’re complaining about not having a womb - see above.

My femininity/masculinity is not questioned because of my body.

“She looks like a boy”. Next!

My individual behavior does not reflect on cisgendered people. I am not embarrassed when a cisgendered person does something crazy, nor is the sanity of all cisgendered people questioned.

Because women (generally) or lesbians (specifically) are never lumped together as a group, or generalised about, or called crazy. Next!

I am not asked to think about why I have the gender identity I have.

“You’re a lesbian, you’re confused, you want cock”. Next!

If I show none of the telltale signs of being attracted to members of my own biological sex, I can socialize with people of my own gender without worrying about whether they think I am trying to date them.

So what would these ‘telltale signs of being attracted to members of my own biological sex” be then? In the case of a man a set of Judy Garland albums? In the case of a woman, short hair, combat trousers and drinking pints? Aren’t we being just a tad homophobic here? Surprisingly - even though I exhibit the extremely tell tale sign of telling everyone I know I’m a lesbian, many of the women I know, both straight and gay are willing to socialise with me without first asking me to sign a form in triplicate saying that I promise not to try and date them. Funny that. I also know of heterosexuals who experience the same bizarre phenomenon. Now where did you say you from again?

During adolescence, I did not feel that my body was changing into something nonhuman.

Because I wasn’t conceived by alien kidnap? I did have terrible, terrible PMT due to my malfunctioning ovaries though, will that do?

Society’s opinion of transgendered people does not affect me

Apart from when I am being told I ‘look like a boy’ by sniggering teenagers. But society’s opinion of lesbians, as expressed by homophobes like you does.

I am allowed and even encouraged to wear the clothing of my own gender

See above, or I get it - you mean pretty frocks, high heels, make up and long hair. Because I dream of wearing those.

I can complain about problems I have with the opposite gender without people looking at me strangely.

Do you think maybe there’s another reason people are looking at you strangely?

I am never asked to speak for everyone who is cisgendered

And nobody ever makes wild generalisations about women or lesbians, or indeed radical feminists.

If I wish to be in the company of members of my gender only, I can do this easily. If I am in a sex-segregated facility, I am surrounded by people of my own gender.

Funny you should mention that, because if I want to be in a group that doesn’t have any biological males in it, I get shit for it.

People don’t ask why I made my choice of gender identity

No - they just yell abuse (see above).

If I am part of a church or other organized religion, I don’t have to worry about whether the other members hate people with my sex/gender combination, and I don’t have to worry about whether my gender identity will have consequences in the afterlife

Because no organized religions are homophobic right?

If I am grouped because of my gender identity, it is with other people of the same gender, not with cisgendered people

Apart from when I’m grouped as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender of course.

My body is the sex it is supposed to be. I have never wished to change sex. I don’t have to worry that I might someday have a nervous breakdown and need to start a long, dangerous, costly process, which might not even work, in an attempt to match my body to my gender.

Take it up with goddess.

I see people who look like me and are like me in a wide variety of non-stereotyped roles in books, on television, and in movies

Yeah because all the ‘lesbians’ on the L word, TV’s one and only lesbian programme are fat middle aged northern dykes.

I have never felt like an impostor in a male (or female) body.

Take it up with goddess. Although I have always felt that I should have the body of Elle McPherson. Now who do I complain to again?

I don’t need to think about gender roles and transgender issues every day. I can choose when and where I want to respond to these issues. I have the privilege of not knowing I have privilege.

Yes because when I (or any other woman) is on the train to work and the man next to us takes up half our space, we don’t think about gender roles. When we get to work and we get paid less than a man doing the same work we don’t think about gender roles. When someone expects us to do a menial task just because we’re female, we don’t think about gender roles. When we hear our friend or relative has been killed or seriously injured by their partner in an incident of domestic violence we don’t think about gender roles. When we think about the abuse ourselves, our female friends, relatives and lovers have experienced in our lives BECAUSE WE ARE FEMALE we don’t think about gender roles. Do we?

Now what was that privilege again?